HOW TO TRAVEL ON A BUDGET (UK)

As someone in a long distance relationship, who has also worked in some weird and wonderful corners of England, I’ve learned my fair share of tips and tricks to lowering the cost of travelling massively! (P.S my next post will be my Christmas Gift Guide I am SO excited to share it with you all.)

SPLIT YOUR TICKET

This is a completely legal way of splitting a ticket cost. Instead of buying a ticket from for example, Leeds to Birmingham for £70, if I look at the exact stations and arrival times of that one train that I want to get, and buy a ticket for every station that the train goes to instead of one whole ticket, (ie from Leeds to Sheffield, Sheffield to Derby, Derby to Birmingham) it works out SO much cheaper. By doing this, I am guaranteed to shave my ticket cost from £70, to £22. I don’t have leave the train once, and for the sake of having a few extra tickets I couldn’t recommend this method more, you wouldn’t believe the price difference! You can do it automatically yourself, to each station, or this website does it all for you!

THE MEGABUS

Now I know that the Megabus gets a bad rap, the idea of being on a coach for five hours surrounded by screaming children in the heat is enough to make anyone’s blood curl, and I have had one or two journeys like that BUT it really isn’t that bad at all. In fact lately, I prefer it so much more to trains, because I know that I’m guaranteed a seat, instead of being sat on the floor by the toilet because I’m too polite to ask someone to move from the seat that I was so relieved to reserve. There’s always air con, charger sockets, and plenty of room. I get on board, make a little nest for myself, play some music, and do my writing. Compared to the train, it’s about 1/6 of the price and genuinely lately I’d take it over the train any day, and I never thought I’d say that! Plus you always end up arriving earlier than it states anyway, and sometimes it’s just as fast as the train for an absolute quarter of the price! Oh and just to top it off even more, you also get student discount. I’ve travelled from Leeds to Birmingham before for £1, it’s madness.

RAILCARDS

For anyone who doesn’t have a railcard aged between 16-25 I implore you to get one. You save a third off ALL train journeys. It’s £30 a year, and the first time that I bought one, I bought a ticket to London saving myself £30, literally covering the railcard price in my first go. It probably saves me over £400 every single year!

So here were my little travel tips for making journeys a little more kinder for the pocket. I hope you’re all well, and I can’t wait to share the Christmas season with you all!